NOV 06
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Further into the forest
Trees have several methods at their disposal for seed dispersal. For example, they can simply use gravity ( the seed drops to the ground ) air dispersal ( e.g. wind, or ‘gyration’ of winged seeds ) or the fruits can be dispersed by animals / birds etc.
Researchers from the UK’s Imperial College, and the US’s University of Pennsylvania, decided to investigate how the area over which the seeds are dispersed depends on the strategies which the trees use.
They tested several hypotheses. For example :
“ We hypothesize that trees of a species with limited seed dispersal will be tightly clustered in space, whereas a species with a mechanism for long-distance seed dispersal will exhibit less clustering or even spatial randomness. “
and
“ . . . larger-bodied birds and mammals eat larger fruits, have larger home ranges, and may carry seeds over longer distances than small birds and mammals do. “
Both ideas were upheld during the study of trees in a 50-ha plot of lowland tropical forest in peninsular Malaysia.
Results were complex, but Really Magazine makes an attempt to them up thus :
Trees with large fruits managed to get dispersed over larger areas, whereas seeds which just dropped to the ground tended not to get as far. Seeds dispersed by wind were somewhere in between the two.
Read the full study here in the current issue of Public Library of Science
: Biology
30 NOV 06 (late)
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Oldest ritual unearthed.
Researchers from the Department of Archaeology, Conservation, and Historical Studies at the University of Oslo have discovered what they believe to be ‘ the World’s oldest ritual. ‘
In the course of investigating caves in Ngamiland, Botswana , the Norwegian archaeologists came across a large rock reminiscent of a snake’s head.
" You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving ".
Following an inspired hunch, they began their dig in front of the stone – and came across more than 13,000 artifacts, some dating from 70,000 years ago.
Some of the artifacts, mainly spearheads, had been heat treated.
“ Stone age people took these colourful spearheads, brought them to the cave, and finished carving them there. Only the red spearheads were burned. It was a ritual destruction of artifacts. “
Until this discovery, the mankind’s oldest known ritual was reckoned to date from 40,000 years ago in Europe.
" Our find means that humans were more organised and had the capacity for abstract thinking at a much earlier point in history than we have previously assumed "
Read today's press release from the university here ( in Norwegian )
30 NOV 06
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How does déjà vu work ( again ) ?
“ Traditionally it was thought images from one eye were delayed, arriving in the brain microseconds after images from the other eye – causing a sensation that something was being seen for the second time. “
An explanation which most people who have experienced a full-on déjà vu might find lacking in credibility.
And now the University of Leeds - one of the world’s leading research centres for déjà vu - have challenged this stock view with a new study published in the current issue of Brain and Cognition.
The challenge took the disarmingly simple route of examining déjà vu experiences in a blind subject.
“ Visual input is not present in [ the subject ], yet the experiences he describes are consistent with reports in the literature of déjà vu occurrence in sighted people “ [ see note below ]
It seems then that the monocular signal-delay hypothesis is now on even more shaky ground than it ever was.
And so the university ( and other centres around the world ) will continue their research to try to find an answer ( or some answers) to the enigmatic syndrome which is reportedly experienced by over 90% of the human population at some time or another.
Read the University’s press release here :
Note
Enthusiasts of semantics of might argue that the subject’s experiences were centred around auditory cues – so, strictly speaking, what he was experiencing was déjà entendu rather than déjà vu.
Also see : Déjà vécu, Déjà senti, Déjà visité
Reader Geoff H comments :
Deja Vu should be a perfectly acceptable name for something you think you've heard (or felt etc.) before - 'see' does not necessarily refer to sight literally, it also means to understand ( as in 'Yes, I see what you mean Geoff'!) and is therefore valid for any recognised sensations.
Editor's ( tentative ) definition :
' Déjà vu is a premonition one has forgotten about. ‘
29 NOV 06
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Meta-Tribbles in Toronto
[ file under: Psychology / Computing ]
The FLOCK [in] exhibition is currently underway at the Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre in Toronto, Canada.
Artistic collaborative PLAN B invites you to pick up, hold, and position a trio of colorful fur-covered spherical interfaces within the gallery.
“ Oddly reminiscent of techno-color Star Trek tribbles, these interfaces trigger a barrage of imagery and sounds that migrate throughout the space in an open-ended pattern, much akin to the movement of a flock of birds. “
The exhibition runs until Jan 13th. Details here :
Also see :
• Robert A. Heinlein's Flatcats ( 1952 )
28 NOV 06 (midday edition)
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Rhizomatics in 2007 Nottinghamshire
On December 7th the UK’s University of Nottingham will officially open it’s new Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice.
The new centre, which will be offering MAs, Mphils and PhDs certainly won’t have a shortage of research material : covering
“ war, peace and terror and international human rights to democracy, protest and anarchy. “
In a press release issued yesterday, professor Simon Tormey,Simon Tormey, director of the new centre, said:
“ We're
not on a mission to save the world, we don't have a political agenda and
we're
not Bono. What we do want the centre to be is a space for dialogue where
we can look at how theory can translate into practical solutions for real-world
problems. ”
؟ ؟ ؟
Keywords of the day ( from 2005/6 Univ. Nott. coursework info. )
' post-representative post-identitarian minoritarian anarcho-libertarian rhizomatic univocity '
Cartoon of the day :
from Andy Singer
28 NOV 06
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PEuT
BBC Radio 4’s Planet Earth under Threat is an eight part radio series examining Global Warming Climate Change and its implications.
The BBC has taken the unusual step of setting up a production blog so that listeners can follow the progress of the series, and add their comments.
The first segment was broadcast last week, and got a fairly polarised reception on the comments pages. Many listeners rated the prog very positively, but others questioned whether it was really necessary for the production team to fly around the world to make it.
Just to produce the first 30 minutes of the programme, the team flew to Greenland, Fiji, and Madagascar to make their recordings. Remember this isn’t for TV, it’s radio.
Bearing in mind that the series will eventually be heard ( via broadcast and the www ) by several million listeners, is the CO2 generated by the team’s flights justified ?
Julian Hector, Editor BBC Natural History Unit Radio , puts it like this :
“ The BBC does have a carbon policy, which is reviewed constantly. “
“ The BBC believes that sourcing its electricity from green sources, making buildings more efficient, managing waster and other environmental good practice is a better way to off set our carbon footprint, than paying a carbon tax show for show. “
Really Magazine tried to find details of the BBC’s carbon policy, but only managed to turn up this .pdf , which claims that, as a whole, the BBC generates 174Kg of CO2 per broadcast hour. Which seems like an extraordinarily low estimate.
Perhaps their global media monitoring unit managed to log a factual TV programme broadcast last night by Brazil’s GloboNews – subject: the Greenhouse Effect. The programme-makers consulted a carbon monitoring expert from the University of Sao Paulo to calculate the amount of CO2 generated by just this one programme.
It was 20 Tonnes.
More than 100 times the BBC's self-estimate for their entire corporation . . .
At the end of the prog, the production team planted 14 trees saplings to compensate.
؟ ؟ ؟
Notes :
• TV Globo’s trees will take around 35years to grow sufficiently
to soak up the 20 tonnes.
• The majority of the calculated carbon penalty came from the power used by viewers’ TVs - rather than the production itself
• The second part of PeuT will be broadcast
tonight ( 21.00 GMT ) – they’ll
be going to the US and Ethiopia.
27 NOV 06
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Link of the day
Beer goggles 'explained' . . .
26 NOV 06
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Really Magazine readers . . .
will have no doubt already seen :
“ Iceland harpoons deep-sea protection “
but may have been wondering about the source of the decidedly ( and understandably ) unhappy-looking fish featured in the article.
It’s a type of Blobfish ( Psychrolutes microporos ) which inhabits the deeps around Aus. and N.Z. ( and more than likely elsewhere too )
Here’s a link to the high-res original photo , provided by the CenSeam ( Census of Marine Life on Seamounts ) project, part of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) based in Wellington, New Zealand.
To underline the current lack of knowledge about deep sea environments,
only about 100 seamounts across the world have been examined in any detail.
CenSeam are building towards a global understanding of the ecosystems, biogeography, biodiversity, productivity, and the evolution of marine organisms around seamounts.
Lets hope the Icelandic trawlers ( and others ) don’t get there first.
25 NOV 06
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PPET
“ The PPET study is the first program to demonstrate the effectiveness of a combined PP weight loss program. “
details are published in the current issue of the journal Obesity.
To clarify, PP means People/Pet
And PPET means People/Pets Excercising Together
The one year study looked at 36 obese/overweight people who had an obese/overweight pet – and a control group of 56 obese/overweight people with no pets.
During the course of the diet/exercise programme, the PP group lost 4.7% of their weight, whilst the people-only group (PO) lost 5.2% - perhaps not all that significant a difference (0.5%) between them.
But at the same time the pets lost a very noticeable 15% - in one case more than 15Kg.
The researchers conclude :
“ Consideration of social support for weight loss of family members, friends, and coworkers should be extended to include pets. “
The lead author of the study – Dr. Robert Kushner, from the Wellness
Institute, Northwestern Memorial Hospital , Chicago, Illinois; has been
involved with the PPET concept for some time – having launched
earlier this year. Buy it, via our 'bookshop' page, here.
؟ ؟ ؟
Notes:
• The abstract of the study doesn’t make it clear – but it’s likely that the word ‘pets’ in this context means ‘dogs'.
• If you think your pet might be overweight and would like to find
out, turn to this on-line checklist provided by Petfit.com – part
of the Hill’s petfood group ( which provided the special
dogfood used in the PPET study.)
“ Take a look at your pet from the side. If you don't see a clearly defined abdomen then they are probably overweight. “
• More details of the PPET study here in an exclusive interview with Dr.
Kushner in Pet Insurance News
• Other possible weight loss strategies currently in the news :
24 NOV 06
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¡ Buy Nothing Day(s)
File under Psychology
Tomorrow, November 24th is Buy Nothing Day in the US - no purchase necessary
The
idea, which began in 1992, is co-ordinated by AdBusters.org , and now spans
over 65 nations.
Oddly though, in many countries it’s held on the 25th,
e.g in the UK,
but in Finland it's on the 24th
Also in Brazil
And, unless we've misuderstood, in Indonesia it’s on the 26th . . .
Maybe next year, to make things easier, AdBusters could organise
Buy Nothing Week ?
Many thanks to reader Carmelita for bringing
it to our attention.
23 NOV 06 (late)
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Aus. Nuke or No_Nuke ?
Should Australia build ( 25 or so ) nuclear power stations ? This is the question being asked by the Prime Ministerial Taskforce on Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review.
They have been investigating the subject for five months, and details were revealed two days ago at a meeting of Australia’s National Press Club - where the Taskforce's chairperson Dr. Ziggy Switkowski gave a speech.
“ . . .we need to have an open and public discussion
based on facts and analysis “
Here are some of Dr. Switkowski’s facts :
On accidents :
“ I and my Panel have [also] been to Three Mile Island in the US where the damage was contained within the reactor and no radiation leakage or injury occurred. “
Good news for local Pennsylvania residents, some of whom were previously under the impression that :
' 13 million curies (480 petabecquerels) of radioactive noble gases were released by the event '
؟ ؟ ؟
Radioactive waste management :
“ On radioactive waste, we found that this can be safely managed “
Information which will certainly be warmly received in the UK, where, according to the Government’s latest report ( published July 2006 ) :
100,000 tonnes of it are still in ‘ temporary storage ’ awaiting a decision on a long-term ( i.e. 100,000 years or so ) viable solution.
؟ ؟ ؟
Decommissioning costs :
“ OECD member country estimates suggest that decommissioning costs range between 15 and 20 per cent of initial construction. “
Pinpointing the figure will no doubt be helpful to the UK Govt. Trade and Industry Select Committee , who think that the UK’s nuke clean-up cost ' is still unclear '
The estimate was £48 Billion in 2002, rose to £56 Billion in
2004, then £70 Billion in 2006. And future estimates ? The committee
' thinks it likely that the overall costs will rise significantly '
؟ ؟ ؟
In any event, now that the Autralian Govt. report has been released, the Taskforce is asking for feedback from experts, the public, and indeed any interested parties - by e-mail, fax or post before 12th December . . .
If you have any more facts to add to the list, here's the link .
23 NOV 06
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Link of the day
The effect of the Thanksgiving Holiday on weight gain
( published yesterday by Nutrition Journal )
94 students from University of Oklahoma were weighed before and after the Thanksgiving Holiday ( 2005 ? )
On average, they had gained 500 g. ( males 600 g., females 400 g. )
( thanks to Improb.com for drawing our attention )
Pertinent Turkey info.
In some parts of the world, the turkey-eating season is rapidly nearing, and this year the www is replete with advice on how to deal with it.
Really Magazine has turned again to our favourite advisory resource - as provided by the US dept Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service ( FSIS )
Karen is the FSIS Virtual Represenative, and is available 24/7
We asked :
Q. How many bones does a turkey have ?
A. A turkey has about 200 bones.
Q. How many feathers are on a turkey ?
A. According to the National Turkey Federation, it's estimated that turkeys have 3,500 feathers at maturity.
Q. Is a turducken safe ?
A. A turducken or TurDukHen, a deboned stuffed chicken inside a deboned stuffed duck inside a deboned stuffed turkey, is an exceptionally risky food that requires safe food handling and thorough cooking to prevent foodborne illness. ( further turducken info here )
It’s equally worth visiting the Virginia Cooperative Extension website ( provided by Virginia State University ) who have made available a special ’ media kit ‘ on Holiday Cooking and Food Safety - with on-line .mp3 files which give advice such as :
• Don't Forget to Sanitize to Prevent Cross-Contamination
and • If You Must Stuff, Do It Safely
For further details about " foodborne illnesses associated with turkey " ( e.g. Campylobacter jejuni, Clostridium perfringens, Escherichia coli O157:H7 (E. coli), Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella, Shigella and Staphyloccocus aureus ) the National Turkey Federation provides the relevant info on their Eatturkey website
Notes:
• The US turkey industry produces around $8Billion worth of products per year.
• From roughly 270 million birds
Further food for thought :
Our all time favourite poem about turkeys - from a poet called Benjamin Zephania - here he is performing it on BBC TV ( Realplayer format )
22 NOV 06
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The Handler
“ Numerous studies estimate that over 70% of all common illnesses (colds, flu, intestinal illnesses) are transmitted through surfaces that we touch. “
And the top ten surfaces to avoid are :
1. Public Restroom Faucet handles
2. Airplane toilet seats
3. Public Restroom external door handle
4. Office Microwave
5. Public Restroom internal door handle
6. Elevator buttons
7. Photocopier start button
8. Office Refrigerator handle
9. ATM Keypad
10. Hotel room remote control buttons
That’s according to handlerusa.com , who manufacture a hand-held folding hook-like device called ‘ The Handler ‘ with which you can distance yourself from such perils.
The makers say that It self-sterilises too, using Silver Nano Particles which are incorporated into its plastic and rubber components during the manufacturing process.
The Nano Silver -
“ is presumed to excert (sic.) it's (sic.) antimicrobial effect through the dual mechanisms of Denaturation and Oxidization.
Denaturation
The essential structure of the enzyme that produces oxygen seems to get disconnected
by the catalytic function of silver.
Oxidization
Silver nano particles generate reactive oxygen in the air or in the water,
which in turn destroy cell/wall membranes of bacteria. “
It comes in black/silver or white/grey and costs $10.95 plus shipping/handling.
( Pink Handler is coming in January of 2007. )
21 NOV 06 ( late edition )
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Short big Q’s , long small A’s
As part of their 50th anniversary celebrations, New Scientist magazine this week has a special feature on The Biggest Questions Ever Asked :
The questions are :
• What is reality ?
• Do we have free will ?
• What happens after you die ?
• What comes after Homo sapiens ?
• What is consciousness ?
• What is life ?
• Will we ever have a theory of everything ?
• Is the universe deterministic ?
The responses ( for
subscribers only ) are written by some of the biggest names
in current science, and all provide helpings of food for thought.
Uncharacteristically though, for NS mag, a few of the pieces are actually quite hard to read – the writers having been invited to discus a subject which, by definition, they know from the outset they can’t answer. So, expect plenty of convoluted meanderings, cul-de-sacs, and résumés of others who have pondered the questions and also failed to answer them.
And some, like the essay on 'What is consciousness?' are just disappointing. 2.5 thousand words, and light on factoids to the point that you might think it’s been based on a late night bar-discussion between slightly [ deleted ] characters in a futuristic sci-fi novel.
Though it’s pretty certain that no NS readers would really expect to find ‘the’ answers in the magazine, they might be hoping for something more than
“ . . .these words you are now reading, whose
are they? Yours or mine? The point of writing is to take charge of the
voice in someone else's head.
This is what I am doing. My words have taken possession of the language circuits
of your brain. “
errrrrrr . . . pass.
We're pinning our hopes on the 100th anniversary issue.
21 NOV 06
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Cash under the microscope in Tallahassee
Florida State University (FSU) has just published details of a research project which looked at the implications of the evolution and use of money.
Researchers devised several different sets of experiments to probe the relationships between cash, motivation, and social intimacy.
For example, in one experiment, participants filled in a ( dummy ) questionnaire, and, after a timed interval, three different screensavers were displayed on their computers, ( currency floating underwater, fish swimming, or a blank screen ) - the participants were then asked to move their chairs together : the ones who had seen the money screensaver left a greater distance between the chairs.
In another test, participants played a game of Monopoly ® in which they were left with varying amounts of ‘money’ . The experimenters then staged an ‘accident’ in which one of them spilled a box pencils – the ‘high money’ group were less helpful in picking up the pencils.
From these, and other experiments, the researchers were able to conclude that :
" As countries and cultures developed, money may have allowed people to acquire goods and services that enabled the pursuit of cherished goals, which in turn diminished reliance on friends and family. In this way, money enhanced individualism but diminished communal motivations, an effect that is still apparent in people's responses to money today. "
Full details are published in the current issue of Science magazine ( subscribers only )
Or, you can read a summary in a press release from FSU here ( free )
20 NOV 06
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Dreamlines online
Leonardo Solaas is an artist, philosopher, programmer and web designer who lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In 2005 he implemented ‘ Dreamlines ‘
To preserve the mystery for a moment, we won't go into exact details here regarding how it works - but it uses a graphics programming suite called ‘ Processing ’ ( via Sun Microsystems’s Java language ) to generate continually evolving artwork from 1500 autonomous particles in perpetual movement - seeded by keywords which the viewer provides.
It’s now online. It’s impressive.
Here’s some we made earlier : ( click for full size )
Keyword PARIS
Keyword BAT
Keywords REALLY MAGAZINE
operational note :
Dreamtime needs Flash and the Java ' runtime virtual machine ' (16Mb) installed for your browser in order to run.
Installing Java ( no relation to Javascript ) is not necessarily a trivial process.
Here’s the Sun Microsystems page where you can give it a try.
17 NOV 06 (late)
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Maybe poke it with an $big stick ?
“ It’s an opportunity for the public to be educated in reality “ quotes yesterday’s item on the space.com website regarding NASA’s ( possibly maybe ) ‘ Manned Asteroid Mission ‘ .
( caution : high possibility of pop-ups & ad-nag pages ahead )
According to the article, “ There’s a lot of public resonance with this notion that NASA ought to be doing something about killer asteroids. . . “
And presumably, where there’s public resonance, there’s a funding opportunity.
But do what exactly ? Unfortunately the piece doesn’t go into much [ i.e. any ] detail about how the threat of a ‘ killer asteroid ’ could be obviated by placing a person on it.
Still less about the fact that it’s somewhat very extremely unlikely that a ‘ killer asteroid ‘ would be detected before it hit Earth. ( note : in our estimate )
Guesses as to the number of Near Earth Objects ( NEOs) and Near Earth Asteroids ( NEAs) varies, according to whom you ask - from millions to tens of billions. The orbits of the vast majority are completely unknown. If a large unknown one came our way we probably wouldn’t detect it until it heated up as it entered the atmosphere – and it would hit the surface a second or so later.
The B612* Foundation ( mission
: ‘ To significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid, in a
controlled manner, by 2015.’ ) disagrees with our estimate though “ The
rare case of discovering one just prior to impact, however, cannot be ruled
out, but it is very improbable.”
* B612 is the asteroid home of the Little Prince in the famous book of the same name by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Here's one of his quotes :
" The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them. "
17 NOV 06
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Rumours of complete and utter extinctions greatly exaggerated (?)
On the 3rd November, Science Magazine published the results of an international
study which claimed a huge chunk of media attention by predicting that
commercial fish and seafood stocks may entirely collapse by 2048.
Not necessarily so - according to the to the Institute of Marine Research ( IMR ), Bergen, Norway, in a rebuttal peer review ' Oversimplified doomsday prophecy ' published today :
“ . . . the prediction is based on an oversimplified and partly meaningless presentation of the current situation. “
The institute’s article picks up on several points - such as, how do you define ‘collapse’ ?
“ In the article, ‘collapse’ is defined as when less than 10% of the maximum catch of the species remains – a wrong definition . . . “
Really magazine isn’t sure how to define ‘collapse’ either. Perhaps, as a yardstick, we could take as an example the cod stocks around the Grand Banks off Newfoundland ?
The stocks – and the fishing industry based on them – comprehensively nosedived around fifteen years ago. A local moratorium on cod fishing was imposed pending the recovery of the stocks.
But they didn’t.
And still haven't.
At all.
Perhaps it could be said that they have ‘collapsed ‘ ?
According to the IMR though, on a global scale there’s no cause for alarm :
“ While certain media and organizations have claimed that the cod is threatened with extinction, this is a misunderstanding of the facts. First of all, cod as a species is in no way endangered . . . “
( see IMR cod_stocks )
So who’s most likely to be right ? The IMR ? Or the group of scientists from
• Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
• Department of Economics and Finance, University of Wyoming, USA.
• Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth, UK.
• Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, USA.
• Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, Sweden.
• Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy
of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden.
• National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, USA.
• Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
USA.
• Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Republic of Panama.
• Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, USA.
• Section of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, USA.
• Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
who co-authored the ' oversimplified doomsday
prophecy ' ?
؟ ؟ ؟
؟ ؟ ؟
Notes :
• Norwegian coastal fleet comprised of 12,000 vessels.
• On land there are 800 processing factories.
• Direct employment for 37,000 people.
• Exports worth NOK 30 billion per year.
( source : Ministry of Fisheries )
Around 50% of the funding for the IMR comes from Norwegian taxpayers via the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs.
Really Magazine has trawled extensively through their website but hasn’t managed to find details of where the other 50% comes from . . . could we perhaps guess the fishing and fishing-industry infrastructure industries ?
16 NOV 06
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The concept of OR
If you're a corporate exec., ask yourself the following questions:
• Do you face complex decisions ?
• Are you having problems with processes ?
• Are you troubled by risk ?
• Is your organisation not making the most of its data ?
• Do you need to beat stiff competition?
If the answers tend towards ‘yes’ ( as they typically might do ) then perhaps your organisation could benefit from an application of ‘ Operations Research ‘ ( O.R.)
But exactly what is Operations Research ?
A good place to try find out is at the website of one of its main proponents – The Science of Better ®
Really Magazine read their explanatory page ‘ What Operations Research Is ‘
But sadly, informative as the page is, we evidently lack the management discernment and expertise which might allow us to objectively pin down precisely what it - is - or to understand the finer details of exactly why it's new, or different . . .
Perhaps it’s better to look at a couple of examples of the strategy in action ?
Last week, Science of Better’s sister organisation - the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences ( INFORMS ) - held their annual meeting in Pittsburgh, which saw a presentation of the paper :
' The Economic Impact of Obesity on Automobile Fuel '
Which quantified :
“ the amount of additional fuel consumed (annually) in the United States by automobiles that is attributable to higher average passenger weights, during the period from 1960 to 2002. The results indicate that approximately 938 million gallons of fuel are consumed annually as a result of obesity when measured from 1960. “
( details here )
Or, for another example, see :
‘ How Effective is Security Screening of Airline Passengers ? ‘ which has found that
“ The best way to prevent airborne terrorist attacks may be to improve the baseline security screening of all air travelers rather than identifying and screening high-risk passengers “
( details here )
Straightforward as the explanations are though, Really Mag is still struggling to get a firm grip on the concept of OR - if any readers can enlighten us, please get in touch.
15 NOV 06
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Link of the day
The BBC has is running
an article today on the impact of ‘ Retired
Husband Syndrome ‘ (RHS)
in Japan
If you’re not familiar with RHS , read this description from the U.S. National Institutes of Health ( Western Journal of Medicine )
( caution : unpleasantly sticky .pdf , but worth the wait )
Spinach-based vehicle-skins and gendered nano-bots hook up in LA 2015
The Los Angeles Auto Show is opening its doors on November the 30th. ( festive attire – tickets $125 )
Amongst other things, you’ll be able to see details of VW’s new ‘ concept vehicle ‘ the Nanospyder .
( read about it here: )
( or, more accurately, here , in the form of a browser-challenging monster jpeg 25Mb poster-image )
“ In the year 2015 the Department of Transportation mandated that vehicles are to be 100% recyclable “
“ The Volkswagen Nanospyder would be the cutting
edge of recyclability . . . billions of tiny nano-machines no more than
half a millimetre in diameter
would attach to one another in a large assembly tank. This method would create
vehicles that are optimized for strength, weight and safety to an unprecedented
degree “
Just nine years from now eh ? . . . That really would be quite a turn
around - bearing in mind that the bulk of current auto-maker tech is based
on
tweaked
versions
of designs from more than fifty years ago.
But the future-dreaming doesn’t end there.
Volkswagen and Audi have planted 5000 trees as part of Trees for the Future’s Global Cooling Program .
“ These trees will offset the amount of CO2 generated by 42,580 vehicles for an entire week, the duration of the LA Auto Show ” “ Research has shown that each tree planted in the tropics will remove an average of 2000lbs of CO2 from the atmosphere over the course of its life.”
Unfortunately though, when the trees die, the carbon goes right back into the atmosphere again. In the long term, it’s only possible to ‘permanently’ soak up CO2 if the plant mass is continually expanding – in other words, forests which grow bigger - forever.
Luckily though, there’s another, faster-acting and permanent way to cut down CO2 - it just involves not buying a car at all - unless you absolutely have no choice.
14 NOV 06
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Gifted garments
Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has issued a press release today with details of a new development called the ‘ Wearable Instrument Shirt ’ (WIS)
The shirt, which has motion sensors embedded in the sleeves, can detect arm movements and is eminently suitable for implementing an ‘air guitar interface’.
Of course, electronic ‘air guitar’ interfaces have featured in the news before, but the CSIRO has also been experimenting with two other virtual instruments, which Really Magazine reckons could well be ‘firsts’.
• An ‘Air Tambourine’ (video here )
• and an ‘Air Güiro‘.( video here)
The new inventions
“ take clothing beyond its traditional role of protection and fashion into the realms of entertainment ”
The CSIRO teams have been working on ‘gifted garments ‘ for some
time now in conjunction with the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI)
at the University of Wollongong - here’s another press
release from
2005 :
“ The ability to weave threads of electronic wizardry into fabric means the IQ of textiles is rising sharply “
The obvious question has to be asked though : will the garments will survive repeated wash cycles - or end up as a pile of munted cyber-dags ?
“ Dr Looney says the electronic circuitry is tightly integrated into the fabric, making it quite resilient. “
13 NOV 06
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U R JKNG ?
An unusual tech-engendered argument has erupted in New Zealand.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) , which oversees the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) has made the futuristic decision that :
“ it will accept exam answers written in text message-style “
Though it’s making clear that it is by no means encouraging the use of text-speak – just accepting that th wrting’s on th wall
The New Zealand National Party's education spokesman is not overly happy with the idea though :
“ This kind of pigeon English is fine for young people organising their social lives, but it is not an acceptable way of expressing an academic argument or idea. “
Two points of note :
• Interestingly, the education spokesman apparently chose to use the 19th century variant ' pigeon ' instead of referring to the more current ‘ Pidgin ‘ ( here’s the Wikipedia page he might like to check out )
• His name ? Bill English
The original press release detailed here : by Scoop Independent News, the New Zealand Herald and others.
However, when Really Magazine traced the source of the release, it was found to have been ‘ corrected ’ – so, all we can say for sure is that sbdy swhr gt thgs wrg.
11 NOV 06
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Almost envy free
Really Magazine draws our reader’s* attention to the current issue of the Notices of American Mathematical Society – which is publishing details of ‘ Better Ways to Cut a Cake ‘
“ A mathematical cake, as viewed by n persons participating in its division, is modeled by their n (covert) value functions on the unit interval. Each participant can cut the cake at a point by a vertical line at that point, and each is assumed to make their cut so as to maximize the value of the minimum size piece they might receive. “
In other words , the researchers describe a new two-person, one-cut cake cutting procedure.
The paper is a joint study from three mathematics professors at New
York University, Montclair State University, and the University
of Graz , Austria
- and explores the subtle, yet crucial, differences between :
• ‘
Proportional equitability ‘
• ‘ Pareto optimality ’ and
• ‘ Envy-freeness ‘
Sadly though, this may not be the ultimate solution to universal cake cutting dilemmas :
“ Suffice to say that several questions remain open. “ say the professors in their conclusion.
Here’s the full paper:
[ * the placement of the apostrophe is intentional
]
10 NOV 06 ( late edition )
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< shout > Nah ! Not really . The guy next to me keeps snoring ! < /shout >
Emirates airlines looks set to become the world’s first airline to introduce in-flight mobile phone use for passengers.
The airline has opted for the ‘ Aeromobile ’ system , which uses a mini-basestation installed on the plane ( a picocell ) to communicate with an existing satellite network ( Inmarsat ) , which in turn links with ground stations and so to the entire mobile network.
Because there’s a basestation on the plane, the passengers’ cellphones onboard won’t try to locate a ground-based cell – thereby getting around one of the major ( but little-publicised ) problems with potential airline cellphone use. That is to say the disruption that would be caused to the ground-based cellphone networks as thousands of rapidly-moving phones try to log-on and log-off the cells as aircraft pass overhead.
That still leaves the ‘ social ‘ problem though. For most passengers, a long-haul flight isn’t high on their list of pleasurable experiences. How will non-phone users appreciate their fellow passengers’ one-sided mobile conversations just a few centimetres away form their ears ?
“ The option of mobile phone use will be available under guidelines that recognise and respect the privacy of all our customers. “ says the company’s press-release.
It will be interesting to see the guidelines when they are published.
And even more interesting to see how closely passengers adhere to them.
In the meantime, Really Magazine suggests that perhaps planes could be divided up in the same way as they used to be when onboad smoking was allowed.
So, at check-in, you'd be asked : " Phoning, or non-phoning ? "
10 NOV 06
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Chinese canine controls.
China has been encouraging a ‘one child’ policy for some years – now they have implemented a dog-population restriction policy too. ( in Beijing at least )
The measures were announced yesterday as part of a campaign to curb the spread of rabies.
As well as restricting the dog numbers to less than two per household, the capital is also barring dogs from :
Stores, parks, schools, exhibition halls, amusement parks, railway waiting rooms and sightseeing areas :
And the ban extends to some other zones where you might have imagined they’d already be unwelcome :
Hospitals, cinemas and theatres.
Read details here on Xinhuanet
09 NOV 06 ( late )
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Four goalposts on the beach.
The UK’s Guardian newspaper is reporting today that
“ a record 99.5% of all bathing waters meet EU standards, “
Well . . . yes and no.
Although the piece mentions the word ‘minimum’ twice – it
doesn't really underlne the fact that the new results are for just that – the
very minimum standard.
which is :
• no more than 10,000 total coliform bacteria per 100 ml of water
• no more than 2,000 faecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml of water. *
The European Commission itself though prefers to use another measure
for beach cleanliness – twenty times less bacteria - and the
UK only scores 81% on this scale.
In 2006, the UK's bathing-water quality was the best ever, but still 19%
of UK bathing waters failed to reach the EC’s stricter standard.
. . .
؟ ؟ ؟
* To put this into perspective,
if you were to fill your bath ( if you have one ) with 100 litres
of approved UK beachwater – it
would have roughly 2 million faecal bacteria in it.
09 NOV 06
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Bang !
Astronomers Brian May*, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott have just launched a new book: BANG! - The Complete History of the Universe.
As part of the project. The team are also providing a new website : www.banguniverse.com which has a Q&A section for all Big-Bang related item.
We asked the team this question :
Dear all,
Wherever astronomers look in space, the spectrum of light coming from very distant galaxies is ‘ red shifted ‘ – in other words, the frequency ( i.e. energy ) of the light is lower than would be expected. From this we deduce that the entire universe must be ‘expanding’ ( and so, by implication, must have been ‘smaller’ in the past – hence the Bang! )
But the word ‘expansion’ isn’t used in its normal sense.
If there was a way of measuring the ‘distance’ to a far galaxy ( let’s say with a v e r y long ruler ) we’d find it to be the same distance away today as it will be tomorrow, and was yesterday. Because our ‘ruler’ will also be ‘expanding’ , along with the galaxies and everything else in the universe, including us.
And at the macro scale – let’s say at our scale – no physics experiment has ever found any evidence of any ‘expansion’ – and that’s to be expected, since all our measuring devices would be ‘expanding’ too.
Smaller still, at the atomic scale, the distances between particles appears the same as it ever was – and the particles themselves are the same ‘size’ ( if it’s possible to say they have a ‘size’ ). A proton made freshly today in a particle accelerator is identical in every way to a 14 billion year old one.
In short, we have no way at all of measuring the ‘expansion’ – except by gauging the Doppler-shifted galaxial light we see.
Assuming though that the universe is ‘expanding’ , then the question has to be asked ‘ expanding relative to what ? ’. Perhaps to some kind of ‘real’ or ‘fixed’ space - which evidently ‘has a grip’ on light over very large distances .
It’s quite a selective grip too - because gravity, and the other three ‘forces’ don’t seem to be affected by it . . . If a galaxy, or an atom, is ‘expanding’ , then the fundamental forces which hold it all together would have to be getting stronger too to compensate for the increased ‘distances’ !
Wouldn’t an alternative ( and simpler ) explanation be to assume that maybe there’s some as yet undiscovered physics which affects light travelling over very extreme distances / times ? Say, for example, variable light speed ?
Here's a space we've reserved for their reply :
And answer came there none . . .
؟ ؟ ؟
* Yes, that Brian May ! – here’s the soundtrack for the book !
Buy the book here : [ Hardback 192 pages, £18.00 ]
08 NOV 06
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Temperature and corruption
It’s not original, it’s not scientific, and its implications are far from clear : nevertheless, Really Magazine readers might be interested to see our plot of regional corruption versus average yearly temperatures.
Really Magazine can offer no explanations, draws no conclusions, and is not even convinced there are any. Maybe we should we be looking for historical / colonial reasons ? Or perhaps psychological / physiological ones ? Or a combination ? Or none of the above : it could be completely coincidental.
If any readers have comments or theories, please get in touch.
؟ ؟ ؟
Notes :
The corruption league table for 2006 was released yesterday by Transparency International .
The temperatures were calculated from data supplied by the BBC Weather Centre.
( We took the lowest average winter temp. and averaged that with the highest
average summer temp for major cities in each country Our Excel temperature
data files are here, and here )
Update:
This article has received attention from Der Spiegel’s ‘ Ehrensenf ‘ ( Honour Mustard ? * ) Internet TV channel in Germany - which features at #16 in the corruption league, and where the average yearly temperature is 13C.
[ * Many thanks to several readers who have pointed out to us that 'Ehrensenf' is an anagram of 'Fernsehen' (watching TV).]
07 NOV 06
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Why is an .mp3 like a mollusc without a shell * ?
If you were thinking about ‘ Cultural Artifacts ‘ you might imagine, say, a stone tool, or perhaps Greek amphora – the word .mp3 might not be the first to spring to mind.
But perhaps it should ? An article from the Department of Art History & Communication Studies at McGill University , Canada asks whether the .mp3 could perhaps be considered a Cultural Artifact ?
And answers ‘yes’.
Like the Greek amphorae, the .mp3 is described as a ‘container technology ‘ ; and goes further still ; “ it is a container for containers “
Remembering, as tech-historian Lewis Mumford postulated in 1959 :
“ one reason why container technologies
are neglected often in the history and philosophy of technology is that usually,
they are
coded as feminine. “
Perhaps we could say too that :
“ The mp3 is an artifact in another sense. The mp3 is a crystallized set of social and material relations. “ ?
mp3 does have its downsides though – the recording quality is ‘ lossy ’ – quite substantially ‘lossy’ if you compare it to the 24bit uncompressed digital audio machinery that many sound studios now use to record performances.
“ Perhaps the best attitude, then, is a certain ambivalence toward mp3s. “
Really Magazine agrees ( though confessing that we don't quite understand the author's ' mollusc ' metaphor. )
؟ ؟ ؟
* Read the full article to find out, in the current issue of New Media & Society
06 NOV 06
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Fresh more popular
Why are rotten things ( usually ) repugnant to us ? A glib answer would be that they’re ( usually ) dangerous to eat.
Back in 1977 though, ecologist Dan Janzen turned the idea on its head, by suggesting that perhaps natural selection may favour microbes which secrete repulsive chemicals whilst consuming their food – by making these resources repugnant to other animals, and so allowing microbes to eat them instead.
Beginning in 2002, the Georgia Institute of Technology have been testing the idea.
They loaded crab traps with two version of bait. Version one was fresh - the second “ had been rotting in a pool of warm water – some of it for one day and the rest for two days “.
During the course of the experiment, it was found that 2.6 times as many large animals visited the traps with the fresh bait.
Prompting the deduction that , yes :
“ . . . bacteria compete with large, animal scavengers by rendering carcasses chemically repugnant. “
But Really Magazine urges caution with this conclusion - and offers another viewpoint.
Maybe the large animals’ ancestors – the ones which by chance didn’t find the bacterially-produced smells and tastes repugnant – didn’t live very long.
In other words, perhaps they ( and we ) have been naturally selected rather than the bugs ?
Maybe the microbes can’t help producing the smelly chemicals – which, over time, have ended up being very useful markers which we can use to recognise potentially dangerous bacterial infections ?
Dogs, vultures, and aficionados of blue cheese, hung venison, and ‘hundred
year old eggs’ may
even hold a third view.
The findings will be published in an upcoming edition of the journal Ecology .
Overview here :
reader Oxnard makes the following point :
in my mind, the measure of freshness in organic matter is equivalent to the degree of entropic decay in the organic system which has given up its dynamic maintenence (is dead). if something is rotting, it is breaking down into incoherent components: it's protein strings are decaying, and it's organic integrity is falling apart. now, every organism of the animal kingdom replensihes itself solely on a diet of organic systemic matter. before we invented laboratories, the only inorganic substances we consumed were salt and water. it seems that in order for animal life to maintain itself, it must consume matter which is coordinated into a structured organic system. granted, our digestive systems break this down into smaller, more entropic states in order to assimilate it's components into ourselves, but these components must be in some sort of organic structure to begin, and this structure is only constructed and maintained by the dynamic process of life. hence, when this matter decays, it becomes less open to consumption and assimilation into our own organic systems. there is less potential energy available for conversion into our own systems.
04 NOV 06
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EP & PC
If you were looking to read some controversial material, the scientific journal ‘ Evolutionary Psychology ’ might not be the first publication to spring to mind. The current issue however, carries an article which could well be seen as contentious in some quarters.
Entitled ‘ No, It Ain’t Gonna Be Like That ‘ , the piece seeks to refute a conjecture, made previously in the same journal, that the future of Evolutionary Psychology (EP) might be in Asia.
To Really Magazine , the article doesn’t seem to dovetail all that encouragingly into an imaginable future-ethos of free-flowing multi-directional cosmopolitan intellectual cooperation and knowledge-pooling. And PC it ain’t.
Here are some short quotes, which we've redacted slightly for our senstive readers, but which hopefully still give a flavour of the text :
[ Note : ***** Insert ethnic group here ]
" ***** can’t think "
" ***** can’t write ( nor can they speak English ) "
" ***** have not been able to make original contributions to basic science. "
It’s a fair bet to say that such views might not be warmly shared by 100% of the ( presumably ) global readership of the journal.
More eyebrow-raising material follows :
[ ##### Insert country here ]
" ##### sends the second-rate students to American universities and the third-rate students to British universities, both with falsified transcripts and exam results to make them look first-rate. "
[ $$$$$$$ Insert another country here ]
" As long as $$$$$$$ remains true to the Statue of Liberty, and the freedom and openness she inspires, then virtually all future scientific progress will come from her shores. "
Really Magazine had never pondered any possible connections between altruism to the Statue of Liberty and scientific progress before : Had you ?
03 NOV 06 ( late edition )
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Sniffing in the Cantons
“ The physiology and biological significance of human body odors is multifaceted and not yet well understood yet. “ (sic.) begins a new research paper from the Université de Lausanne , Switzerland.
The research team were particularly interested to test if differences in body odour were significantly linked to genetic variations. To be specific, genes within the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC)
To this end, a group of T-shirt donors were selected :
They were male, averaged 24.5 years old, “ appeared to be of Caucasian origin, and spoke the Swiss-German dialect without any obvious accents. “
They wore the shirts for two consecutive nights.
The shirts were then submitted to a team of ‘ smellers ’ - who were all female.
The ladies, ( who were compared to the donors for MHC specificity ) rated the shirts according to whether the odours were ‘ weak or intense ‘ ( and there were also ratings for ‘ pleasant / unpleasant ‘ ).
Thankfully, there was no repeat of an occurrence in a previous (1995) study ( from the same author ) in which : “ one subject reported a feeling of nausea for several hours after smelling the experimental t-shirts .”
Findings ?
“ In conclusion, if we control for MHC-linked perception we find few indications for a possible link between body odor intensity and MHC specificity. “
؟ ؟ ؟
The paper is published in the current issue of Evolutionary Psychology – read
it here :
03 NOV 06
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Keywording in Pennsylvania.
A new computer algorithm is under development at Penn Sate University .
The system, called ALIPR ( Automatic Linguistic Indexing of Pictures-Real Time ) assigns keywords to digitised images by comparing them with others stored in its knowledge base.
" By inputting tens of thousands of images, we have trained computers to recognize certain objects and concepts and automatically annotate those new or unseen images. “
The developments will no doubt be watched closely by owners of picture libraries, who currently employ teams of ‘ keyworders ’ to suggest appropriate tags for their new images.
The tags are essential, especially now as many picture libraries now have their content online - and searchable via keywords.
But how accurate is the new system ? According to the developers :
“ More than half the time, the computer's first tag out of the top 15 tags is correct. "
In order to convince you, ( and to help ALIPR ' learn' ) the team have made an on-line version of the software available. You can upload an image, and the system will suggest what it gauges to be the appropriate keywords. A brave move indeed.
Bear in mind though that “ ALIPR is like a child trying to learn about the world. “
Here’s some of our images which we tested, with the ALIPR keywords below : We've highlighted the words which our in-house team of human keyworders thought were appropriate.
indoor modern man-made interior food
dessert people cloth female super_model
face child youth fish ocean_animal
( score : 4 out of 15 )
flower animal rural barnyard plant
insect butterfly orchid green grass
primate mushroom man-made car sport
( score : 3 out of 15 )
building historical people landscape waterfall
rock texture natural marble snow
ice frost landmark ruin grass
(score : 7 out of 15 )
indoor man-made people drawing thing
tool decoration decoy sport cloth
art bird photo ship steam
we don’t think it’s fair to give points for ‘photo’ and ‘thing’
so, score: 2 out of 15
Note that all the first tags were indeed correct. Though perhaps the system could benefit from a computer algorithm equivalent of the old adage :
“ It’s
not what you put in, it’s what you leave out that matters “
02 NOV 06
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Still plenty of room at the bottom ( etc )
The enigmatically named Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration ( a.k.a. ETC ) is running a ‘ design a nanohazard symbol ‘ competition.
At present there’s no internationally recognised nanohazard symbol, and it’s obvious that there will be a need for one, but ETC’s statement that nanotech is “ . . . the world's most powerful (and potentially dangerous) technology “ seems a touch exaggerated.
Perhaps first there ought to be a tight definition of what nanotech actually is ? For example - are living cells nano-machines ?
And despite all the nanotech-industry hype, as of today, there are rather few man-made practical examples in widespread use. The ones which do exist are primarily based around ultra-fine powders ( e.g. powdered titanium dioxide as used in suncreams ) - though it’s true that their long-term effects are unknown.
It’s worth bearing in mind too that naturally occurring nano-scale entities have been around for much longer than we have - some are harmful, some harmless: Examples ?
• Space dust ( arriving here by the tonne every day )
• Soot ( often includes naturally occurring buckyballs / tubes )
• Bubbles ( one-molecule-thick walls )
• And of course - Smoke.
Here’s our competition entry :
The competition closes 8th Jan. View entries here :
Update:
Dr. Anders Sandberg from the Royal Institute of Technology , Stockholm, has developed a wonderful set of ‘ Warning Signs for Tomorrow ‘ .
e.g. Memetic Hazards : a black lightbulb
to represent really bad ideas.
01 NOV 06 ( late - again thanks to our ISP )
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